                               PowerPage v1.32
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                             by Richard Fairhurst

                          (c) 1992  Robot PD Library


                          Introduction to PowerPage
                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1.0 WHAT IS POWERPAGE?

PowerPage is a DTP system for the  Amstrad  CPC. It has more features than any 
other program in its price  range,  yet  unlike  other programs, it works even 
with 64k CPCs. What is more, you can freely copy it (see copyright details).

PowerPage lets you edit an  A5  page  with  full  graphics capabilities. It is 
WYSIWYG - i.e. what you see  on  the  screen  is  what's printed out. No other 
program in a similar  price  range  lets  you  create  a  professional page so 
easily.

2.0 FIRST STEPS

Insert your PowerPage disc and type  RUN"DISC". A copyright screen will appear 
on the screen: press any key for the  main  menu. A whole host of options will 
appear: these are all programs you can  run. The programs from "2" onwards are 
described in the utilities instructions.  We  are  interested in option 1, the 
main PowerPage program, so press 1.

After a while, the screen will  clear,  a  menu  bar  will be displayed at the 
bottom, and a cross-hair cursor will be  visible at the top left. PowerPage is 
now ready.

2.1 USING POWERPAGE

The page, which is A5  in  size  when  printed  out,  is  70 lines deep and 80 
columns across. You can see all 80 columns at once, but only 24 lines.

Your cross-hair cursor is moved around  the  screen with the cursor keys. Hold 
down SHIFT, and it will move more quickly. If you go off the top or the bottom 
of the screen, the screen will scroll  and  a  bit  more of the page will come 
into view, unless of course you are already  at the top or bottom of the whole 
page! You start off at the top of the page.

You can just type in anything you like  and  it will be displayed on the page. 
You can use the DEL and ENTER  keys  as normal, too. (If autoflow is selected, 
then ENTER will move to the right of any graphics on the next line. Otherwise, 
it will move to your "set position".  This  is  normally the left of the page, 
but can be altered by moving to any column and pressing CTRL-S).

At the bottom of the page is a menu bar, reading:

(c) Robot PD   Block    Text     Import   Options  File     Page     Style

One of the options will be highlighted.  You can move the highlight by holding 
down CTRL and moving cursor left or right. To select an option, hold down CTRL 
and press COPY. When you have done this, you can't move the cursor around etc. 
until the option has finished.

2.2 DRAWING FACILITIES

If you want  to  draw  something,  you  can  use  PowerPage's built-in drawing 
facilities. Try moving the cursor  somewhere  and pressing COPY (without SHIFT 
or CTRL). Then move the cursor  around  -  a  line  will follow you. To fix it 
down, press COPY again.

You can do the same with a rectangle -  just press SHIFT with COPY. Or, if you 
want to draw an ellipse, press SHIFT and  TAB (a rectangle will be shown until 
you press SHIFT+TAB a second time, when the ellipse will be drawn). TAB on its 
own just plots a point. Finally, to fill in an area, press CTRL-TAB. Make sure 
that there aren't any gaps in the shape you want to fill in!

2.3 BLOCK GRAPHICS

You can use block graphics as well as normal text. Just type any letter from A 
to P while holding down  CTRL  and  the  block  graphic  will appear. (You can 
change the graphics selection from Options  on  the  menu bar - details in the 
Advanced Instructions).

2.4 RULER GUIDE

CTRL and the up cursor key  will  bring  up  a  ruler on the bottom line. This 
is provided to let you  position  text  and  graphics accurately. The menu bar 
reappears if you select a menu option, or press CTRL and the down arrow.

(In other parts of the program, you can  still bring up this ruler by CTRL and 
up-cursor, but CTRL and down-cursor will have no effect).

3.0 THE MENU BAR

This section deals with the options accessed  from  the menu bar. To select an 
option, just move the  highlight  left/right  with CTRL+cursor left/right, and 
press CTRL/COPY.

When you have selected an option, ENTER/RETURN  can  be used in most places to 
return to the normal mode.

Note that you should keep the PowerPage disc in the drive at all times, unless 
you need to load or save something (in which case put it in when you are asked 
for the filename and replace  it  after  the operation), otherwise the program 
will probably stop!

3.1 THE BLOCK MENU

You must have drawn a rectangle around an area using SHIFT and COPY first, but 
not fixed it down by pressing  SHIFT+COPY  a  second time. Instead select this 
option. You will be given the choice  of Reverse (reverse the area's colours), 
Wipe (clear it), X-flip (flip it horizontally) or Y-flip (flip it vertically).
Just press the initial  letter  of  the  option  you  want  (which  will be in 
capitals) to select it. Details of "Cut" are in the Advanced Instructions.

3.2 THE TEXT MENU

Details of this are in the Advanced Instructions.

3.3 THE IMPORT MENU

You can choose  between  Font,  Clip   art,   and  Picture  (press the initial 
letter). Font lets you load  a  new  font  from  the disc (Advanced Art Studio 
fonts are ok, as are those created with most character designers), and Picture 
lets you load in a 17k  standard  MODE  2  screen created with an art package. 
Just type in the filenames when prompted to do so, inserting the disc with the 
files on at the same time and replacing it afterwards.

If you want to load a MODE 1 screen, a conversion utility is supplied (details 
in the Utilities helpfile).

Clip art is covered in the Advanced Instructions.

3.4 THE OPTIONS MENU

Details of this are in the Advanced Instructions.

3.5 THE FILE MENU

This menu lets you load or save pages,  as well as catalogue the disc and save 
standard 17k screen files for loading into  an  art package. A list of options 
will come up, which you can choose by pressing the initial letter.

PowerPage pages are 46k in length, and two files totalling this length will be 
saved if you choose  the  "Quick  save"  option.  You  will  have to enter the 
filename of the page you  want  to  save.  However,  if  you want to save disc 
space, select the "Save" option. This automatically compresses the page into a 
file of around 30k in size, so you can get five or six on each side of a disc. 
It takes a few seconds longer to  save  a compressed page, but not much. Enter 
the filename and insert the disc to save onto, then replace the PowerPage disc 
when you are prompted to.

To load a previously saved  page  (either  compressed or uncompressed) press L 
for load. You will be asked  to  enter  the  filename (insert the disc to load 
from) of the page.  If  you  need  a  disc  catalogue,  just  press  A or B to 
catalogue drive A: or B:. As  PowerPage  uses  most  of the screen for storing 
page data (so that it will work on  a  464), the catalogue is displayed in the 
menu bar area. Just press any key to see the next line of the catalogue.

Finally on this menu, you  can  save  a  17k  screen  file  (press P for "save 
Picture") to disc, to be  loaded  by  an  art  package. Enter the filename and 
insert the disc to save onto when asked.

If you try to  save  a  file  with  an  incorrect  filename,  the program will 
probably crash. However, if you try to  load  a file that does not exist, your 
error will be reported to you and you  will  be  given a chance to enter a new 
filename.  (An  error  code  will   also   be   displayed:  see  the  Advanced 
Instructions).

IMPORTANT NOTE. For versions 1.32 onwards, a new, more effective form of  file
compression has been used. PowerPage will still recognise files using the  old
form of compression. However, if you want to save a file so  that  it  can  be
loaded into earlier versions of PowerPage, use the Quick  (uncompressed)  save
option.

3.6 THE PAGE MENU

Pressing U or D will move up or  down  the  page by a whole screen, so you can 
quickly move to a different part of the page.  T  or B will move to the top or 
bottom of the page.

The other option, Print, is covered in the Advanced Instructions.

3.7 THE STYLE MENU

You are not limited to just one style  of  text - you can choose italic, bold, 
underline or thin text, or  any  combination  of  those. Just select the style 
option and press B, T, I or U to select each style (a tick will appear next to 
the selected ones) - then ENTER/RETURN to  exit. When you start to type again, 
it will be in that style. This menu can also be called up by pressing CTRL-X.

4.0 OTHER FEATURES

The other features of  PowerPage  are  detailed  in the Advanced Instructions, 
which are on this disc.

4.1 THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

Once you've  mastered  these  functions,  move  onto  the  more  advanced ones 
detailed in the  Advanced  Instructions.  You  will  then  be  able  to create 
impressive pages easily - no matter what CPC you have.

Remember you are entitled to make  copies  of PowerPage for your friends, just 
so long as it remains unaltered. If you  want to distribute it on a commercial 
or semi-commercial scale  (e.g.  in  a  PD  library)  then  you  will need the 
author's permission. Read the copyright helpfile for more info.

Good luck with the program!

Richard Fairhurst
Robot PD Library
16th November 1991
